Requiem in Three:For Leah, who should be alive & well, but isn't​

For Sara

Dear Sara,

You've never met me, and if you had, you wouldn't remember. You are two.You are two and your mother is dead.You are two and your father is devastated.You are two and so I pray that you won't remember any of these dark, dark days.

And yet, I pray that you will somehow remember your mother.Is that possible, to remember her but forget this awful time?I will pray that it might be,somehow.

Part of how you will remember your mother is through the tellings of others;of those who knew her;and loved herand respected her;those who sung with her and fought with her.We will tell you what you need to know.It is the least we can do.Andit may be the most we can do.

I met your mother in Cantorial School.She was one of my first friends in a very small and tight-knit class.We were a diverse group. That's actually probably an understatement.And before we all bonded together over shared experience,and with no choice -spending almost every day in the same small Israeli classroom - in the early days, your mom was one of the only people I felt I could relate to.

We shared many of the same qualities:We both had strong, sometimes overbearing personalities.We could both be loud and boisterous.We both loved to laugh.We were both deeply feeling and very sensitive.We both loved to sing and to teach andwe loved doing those things for others as much as for ourselves, if not more.We could both sink into sadness like stones in a deep, dark pool.We both struggled.We struggled with similar challenges.We struggled with unhappiness.We struggled to live successfully despite unhappiness.We struggled to trounce unhappiness into the dust and live happy and healthy livesin defiance of ever having been unhappy or unhealthy.

In Israel that year, I was new to the struggle.Your mother was one of the first people to help me name it, to help me accept it,to help me cope.She was compassionate and caring and understanding.In those early years, it felt like we took turns -sometimes I was struggling and she was holding me;sometimes she was struggling and I was holding her.But always we knew we were in the same battle together;that no woman would be left behind.

And over time we found that the choices and people we needed to cope -to reachreachtoward happiness - took us in different directions.We drifted apart. Not for a lack of caring.And if one of us took a turn, the other was thereregardless of time passed.

Six years we were students together,and then, out in the real world,real distances compounded the space that had already grown between usand Facebook (do you still have Facebook in your time Sara?) became a way for us to stay connected. To share each other's triumphs and struggles from afar.Facebook was the window through which I watched your motherfinallyfinallytrounce unhappiness and LIVE.She found a community she loved;she found a man she loved and who loved her;she had you - a daughter she loved immensely.I didn't have to be in the same school or city or state or even countryto know all of those things,she shared her love and her joy with the worldand we celebrated with her.

I saw your mom last in the summer of 2014in Israel, where we had first met,during a concert she was participating in.We found each other in the aisles afterwards.There were people streaming all around us and we were being jostledso it was a short conversation.But among the usual pleasantries,the obvious catching-up questions,I said to her:I can see how happy you are Leah.I am so happy that you are happy.And she beamed.She showed me your picture.We parted.

That face, beaming, is how I will remember her.Triumphant.

Sara, here is what you need to know:Some people will tell you your mother's death was unjust - and it was -but in her far too short life, your mother touched people.She made a difference to the communities she led with her beautiful, sweet voice;she made a difference to her family and friends;she made a difference to me.The things we learned from her, the songs we learned from her, the memories we have - she lives on in all of those things; in all of those places.

But more than any of them,she lives on in you.Somewhere in you,you have her strength, her resilience, her courage;her laughter, her music, her love of the Jewish people.You have her.You will always have her.

And we will tell you the stories.Whenever you want to hear them.And together we will keep her memory alive,shining brightly,as she shined in life.

Leah.Your mother.​My friend.

For Jacob

I didn’t think I could forgethow grief can knock you right off your feet;take the wind out of you;slow you down so that you feel like you’re movingthroughmolassess. But it’s fresh - like I never knew itwhile being altogether far too familiar.

Not my grief, this,​but terribly reminiscent of

I knowwhat it is to wake up next to the person that you lovethe person you think you will spend your life withand find them unresponsive

I know what it isto think you have found happinessand then discover is has slipped through your fingerslike fine grains of slippery white sandovernight

I would never wish such knowing on anyonenot my worst enemynever mind a friendor the husband of a friend.It is not a thing you want to have in common.

It is not a thing that should happen

But it does

And when it doesonly the people who hold you make the difference betweencoming back from the dark place you find yourself inor not

I hope the husband of my friend is being heldby strong armshe will need to be held for some time

We have never met but I am holding him from a distancein my heart

It is the least I can dofor my friend.​

For Leah

Leah.I could always count on you to be angrywhen things weren't going well.How we loved to gripe together against the powers that be;or the annoying classmate;or the unfairness of life.We fought together too,against our shared illness.You were one of them that taught me how to fight backand then laterwhen you needed me tooI shared that lesson back with you.We fought side-by-sideand sometimes one of us fought for the otherwhen the other lacked the strength.

It is rare to be soldiers together in lifeagainst an enemy no one else can see.

Even when we drifted apartI knew we were still fighting together.I hope you did too.

So now I am angry.I am so very angry because you are not here to be angry.Because you would be so angry.Because I know what kind of fighter you areand I know how hard you fought to get to the happy life you were forced to leaveand I know how hard you would have fought, if you could have,to stay with them.Him.Her.Them.The sources of your happiness.

I am angry that it doesn't seem to matter how hard you fought.It is terrifying to think that my fight could come to nothing too;That each of us could lose everything we have in an instant.But I think,if you were here,you would tell me to keep fighting anyway.We were not quitters then or now.I will keep fighting.I will know that you are still fighting with me.

Leah, as clergy we get to touch people's lives in special ways.It is a bitter-sweet thing to read the tributes of the people who's lives you touched.I am so sad for them that they've lost youbut I also know how much it must have meant for you to know that you made a difference in other people's lives.I hope you knew.I hope you know now.This is the only thing,the only tiny silver lining.It is not enough right now though I suspect over time it will have to be.

You made a difference.You touched people.You sang God into the world and into people's lives and hearts and prayers.It is no small thing, this.And you brought a child into the world!You weren't here long enough but you left a long legacy.You will live on in our hearts. In our songs. In your daughter's DNA.You be remembered.It is no small thing, this.

I am so sorry my friend.You did not deserve this ending.It is tragic and unjust and infuriating.I am furious. You would be furious.But we will fight back against the darkness,against the anger, against the hopelessness.Your legacy is what, in the end, will live on;​will outweigh whatever darkness there is.And it will have to be enough.It is more than enough.

I am alive because you taught me how to fight.It is no small thing,this.

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Who Am I?

I am a rabbi, teacher, daughter, sister, friend, dog-lover, woman, human being. Called to an active Jewish life through music and prayer, I endeavor to bring the teachings and traditions of Judaism to others. I truely believe that Judaism can deepen the meaning, understanding and spirituality of both the sacred and ordinary moments in our lives.